Prisoner
by anniegirl132
Summary: Zoro and Sanji wake up in a marine prison with no memory on how they got there. Escaping isn't as easy as it would seem and they need to rely on each other in order to survive.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! Feels like it's been a while since I've written a multi-chapter story… so I hope this one turns out good. I'll try to update as often as possible but with exams at school I don't know how often I can. But luckily, summer is in just a few weeks so I can do more updates then.**

 **This story is based sometime between Fishman Island and Punk Hazard.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or any of its characters.**

 **Warning: cursing and violence**

Sanji woke up slowly, a pounding headache spreading through his head. He frowned at the darkness of the room and blinked a few times in hopes of seeing better, but it didn't work. As more awareness came back to him, he realized his hands were shackled to the wall behind him.

"What the hell?" he muttered, giving the shackles a light tug. They rattled quietly and the sounds echoed off the walls. He wasn't quite sure how he got to this strange place or where this was, all he remembers was arriving on a small island... He and Zoro were walking through the town for supplies… and then he woke up here. Speaking of which.

"Hey marimo, are you here?" he called out into the darkness.

"Shut up shit-cook, I'm trying to sleep," he grumbled from somewhere to Sanji's left.

"Now isn't really the time for that dumbass," Sanji rattled the shackles a little for emphasis.

"Huh?" Zoro grunted, probably noticing the handcuffs for the first time. Idiot.

"Where are we?" Sanji could hear the marimo tugging on his own set of restraints.

"How would I know?" Sanji rolled his eyes. A silence settled over them as Sanji tried to work out how they did end up wherever this was. He went over what he could remember several times in hope of recalling something, _anything_ new, but nothing happened. He growled under his breath in frustration. All Sanji wanted was a smoke to calm his nerves, but he couldn't even have that with his hands shackled behind his back as they were.

At that moment, the door gave a creak and pushed open, allowing a beam of light to shine into the room around the person standing in the doorway, a large and burly man.

"Heh, you two sure are unlucky," the one in front snickered, walking into the room.

"Who the hell are you?" Zoro growled, glaring up at the man.

"The warden. Now that you two are up, I'll explain how things work around here. First-"

"Where is here?" Sanji interrupted. The man's eyes narrowed for a moment.

"The prison of this island. It's not very well known, hell, the admirals didn't even bother to name it… But trust me, it's a good prison. You'll both really _enjoy_ yourselves here," he sneered. Sanji scoffed at the man

"I'm sure we will," Zoro smirked. The man glared down at them.

"Anyway… I'll send some wardens to bring you two to your permanent cell later. This will be your cell until then. It is completely inescapable, so don't get any ideas." He looked proudly around the dark room. Now that the room was lit, Sanji could see the room was actually quite dingy. The walls and floors were covered in a thick layer of grime and a few cobwebs occupied the corners. Sanji scrunched his nose at the disgusting place.

"Yea, who would even want to escape a place this great?" Sanji said, sarcasm dripping from every word. The man clenched his fists, and looked for a moment like he might punch Sanji, but relaxed and fixed the blonde with an ugly sneer.

"And about things work around here, well, you'll figure it out soon enough," then he left the room, the closed door plunging it back into darkness.

"I need to find my swords," Zoro said.

"We need to escape first," Sanji scoffed.

"Well it can't be that hard, we've been in worse situations," Zoro said. Of course they have, but that didn't mean it would be easy. Possible, definitely, but easy? Probably not.

"It's kind of hard with our hands in these cuffs," Sanji frowned. He could hear Zoro tugging at the chains probably attempting to break him. Sanji sighed in annoyance. The marimo may be strong, but there was no way he could break through metal with his bare hands.

"Cut it out marimo, it won't work."

"Shut up. You don't know that," Zoro growled. But before he had time to prove himself right or wrong, a large group of wardens came in to bring them to their permanent cell. It took at least five of them to control Zoro even though they'd left their handcuffs on. Sanji smirked. Only two were escorting him.

Sanji easily yanked himself free from the two wardens' grasps and kicked them both in the head, slamming them into the walls on either side. Some of the others who had been walking along with them. He managed to knock down three more of the men before they could grab him. He growled in annoyance. He couldn't escape with the handcuffs restraining his movements, but he was sure there would be more chances.

A few minutes later, they arrived at a much larger cell. This one only had bars walling it off from the hallway and barred off windows on the opposite wall allowing in some light. There were a few other prisoners sitting around in this cell and a few looked up disinterestedly when they were brought in. Once inside the cell, the guards removed their handcuffs but left before they had time to try to escape.

"Damn it," Sanji cursed, glaring at the guards as they walked off. He'd almost escaped…

"Pansy, you couldn't even get away from that?" Zoro snickered.

"Shut up marimo! It's harder to kick with my hands behind my back," Sanji snapped.

"Why? You don't need your hands to kick."

"I do to balance dumbass!"

"Stupid cook!"

"Marimo!" they lunged at each other, Zoro attacking with his fists and Sanji with his feet, all the while slinging insults at each other.

Once they got tired of fighting, they stood panting and glaring at each other before sitting down on opposite ends of the room. Sanji huffed in annoyance, looking disdainfully across at Zoro.

"Hey." Sanji looked over in the direction of the voice. It was an old looking man with long graying hair and a beard to match. He was hunched over on scrawny limbs and Sanji felt anger bubble inside of him as he noticed signs of starvation.

"You shouldn't waste your energy like that," the man chuckled in a raspy voice.

"Why?" Sanji frowned at the man.

"The guards here are pretty cruel, you'll need all the energy you can get to handle them," the man explained.

"Ok, I'll keep that in mind," Sanji nodded. He knew that he and Zoro would also need to conserve their energy in order to escape. Pointless fighting wouldn't do them any good. Sanji looked across the room at the swordsman. _But he pisses me off so much_ …

"And another thing," Sanji turned his head back to the man as he started to speak.

"Just do what the wardens say. Everything will be better for you if you just listen," he said, with wide fearful eyes. Sanji nodded, though he really had no intention of following that particular piece of advice. He never accomplished anything by just staying quiet and doing what others said, and that certainly wouldn't help him escape this place.

He just had to wait for the right chance. Though he knew that after what happened earlier, the wardens would be more careful around him. But one of them would make a mistake eventually, and then he could take advantage of that.

 **Thanks for reading, and please review if you can! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone, thank you so much to everyone who followed, favorited, reviewed, and read! Hope you enjoy this chapter. :)**

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Sanji looked towards the door as a warden opened the cell gate. There were a few more men standing behind him, all with ugly scowls on their faces.

"You, blondie, come on," the warden snapped. Sanji rolled his eyes and stood up. Might as well get this, whatever it was, over with. He walked over to the warden and the men behind him immediately moved to restrain him. With his hands once again shackled and surrounded by a horde of guards, Sanji followed the warden down the hallway.

They took several turns before finally arriving at a large metal door. The warden opened it to reveal a staircase leading down into the darkness of the room. They all walked down the stairs, and the going was cramped for Sanji with so many people surrounding him.

At the bottom of the stairs was a room dimly lit by torches lining the walls. A burly man in ratty clothing was standing in the center of the room waiting. He had an ugly face that was twisted into a sneer, revealing all of his broken and yellowed teeth. The guards roughly shoved Sanji forwards and the ugly man grabbed him by the arm. Sanji looked disdainfully at the hand wrapped around his arm as the guards left.

The man dragged him over to the back wall and attached his shackles to a chain. As the man bent over to shackle Sanji's feet to the wall as well, the blonde kicked him hard in the face. He flopped back on his back and laid there for a few moments before beginning to get up.

"You're gonna regret that," he spat a glob of blood on the ground. He walked back over to Sanji then drew his fist back before punching the cook hard in the stomach. Sanji kept a straight face but was left panting as the blow knocked the wind out of him. The man took this opportunity to finish shackling Sanji's feet to the wall.

"This'll be fun…" the man muttered under his breath, taking a step back to look Sanji over. Sanji glared back at the man.

"So… I will ask you some questions about Strawhat, and you answer. Okay pirate?"

"Screw you." Sanji would have flipped the man off had his hands not been chained up as they were.

"That's great! It's more fun when you try to play tough… Don't worry though, I'll start off easy," the man once again had that disgusting sneer stretched across his face. Sanji kept silent as blow after blow of the man's large fists hit him. In the stomach, the chest, the face, everywhere.

"Maybe I should go get your friend, he might say something," the man stated.

"You do that," Sanji said boredly. Zoro wouldn't say anything, Sanji knew that, and the blonde was growing tired of being this man's punching bag. It was especially annoying the bastard thought this would actually make him give any information on Luffy. The man gave Sanji a dirty look and Sanji smirked back.

"How about I break your face instead? I've been going easy on you so far," the man growled.

"Go ahead." This time the punches were harder and the man continued to hit Sanji for longer. After a while though, the man grew tired.

"We'll continue this tomorrow," he said, and as if on cue the guards from earlier came in to take Sanji back to his cell. Sanji didn't even feel much like struggling this time. Even if the man hadn't been _that_ strong, being punched that many times still made him sore.

Once in the cell he walked back to where he had previously been sitting and plopped back down, leaning against the wall. Sanji irritably patted at his pockets, wishing for a smoke.

"Hey, you're next," one of the guards gestured for Zoro to get up. The marimo glared but complied and Sanji watched lazily as the swordsman left the cell. He wondered briefly if Zoro would try to escape. ' _The idiot would probably get lost the moment he took out the guards'_ Sanji thought in amusement.

"Heh, they got you pretty good," one of the other men in the cell snickered. Sanji ignored him and instead continued to think about how to escape. The crew would probably realize what happened soon, especially with Nami and Robin there. They were so smart… Sanji smiled blissfully as he thought of the ladies.

He had to escape soon. Without him there, Sanji realized, they would have to make their own food. Or almost worse, one of the other guys would. Sanji nearly cringed at the thought. He maybe trusted Ussop and Chopper to make something simple, but anyone else and he feared for the safety of his kitchen.

"Hey, I was talking to you," the man who had spoken earlier was now standing in front of Sanji. The blonde sighed and kicked the man to the side. There was a satisfying crash as the man smashed into the wall. Sanji looked over and was disappointed to see there weren't any cracks or breaks in the wall. So he couldn't escape that way…

He hoped that the crew at least wouldn't let Luffy in. While he didn't exactly trust the others, he at least knew they wouldn't completely destroy the place, but Luffy was a different story. Not to mention the fact they were still probably short on supplies since Sanji and Zoro were never able to bring said supplies back to the ship.

After a while, the guards brought Zoro back. Sanji disinterestedly looked up as the marimo entered. The swordsman had a few bruises here and there but was otherwise fine. The man down in that basement had probably tried the same treatment on Zoro as he did Sanji.

What that idiot didn't know was that Zoro had an insane pain tolerance. Actually, sometimes Sanji had to wonder if Zoro liked pain. Sanji smirked as he imagined the pissed off look on that man's face as Zoro probably didn't even react to his constant blows. Maybe he would see that expression tomorrow when the man inevitably failed again to get information.

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 **Thanks for reading, and please leave a review. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey! I want to thank everyone so much for the reviews, favorites, follows and reads, I really appreciate the support. :)**

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Sanji woke up early the next morning, already accustomed to getting up at dawn to prepare breakfast for the crew. He looked around the cell room. Zoro was on the other side still asleep and the other prisoners lay scattered about. His mind wandered back to the crew again. He wanted to get back to them soon.

After a while, everyone gradually began to wake up and a warden came by to bring food. It was a mad dash for the food, with some of the prisoners even beating each other up over the few scraps that were served as breakfast. Sanji thankfully managed to get something for himself and Zoro, who was still sleeping. He frowned at the food. By the appearance, he couldn't even really tell what it was.

"Hey, marimo, get up," He kicked the swordsman in the side. Zoro's eyes shot open.

"What the hell shit cook!?" he shouted.

"Breakfast," Sanji dropped Zoro's portion into his hands. Zoro glared angrily at the cook for a few more moments before beginning to eat. Sanji sat down next to him to eat. It seemed to be some kind of meat, but was prepared horribly. Food was food though, and he would never waste.

Sanji vaguely noticed as other prisoners were taken from the room, and then brought back looking much worse than when they left. It wasn't long before it was his turn, once again, to be questioned.

He got up and followed the guards out. Zoro had left a while earlier but hadn't returned yet. He briefly wondered how they were questioning the marimo. He was once again brought down to that basement like room but this time his handcuffs were attached to a thick chain dangling from the ceiling in the center of the room. The torturer grinned, walking up to him.

"This'll be fun," he reached out and grabbed hold of Sanji's shirt and jacket in a fist. Then he pulled out a knife and tore away the expensive clothes, leaving Sanji shirtless.

"What the hell!?" Sanji shouted. This guy had no idea how hard it was to get suits on the Grand Line. The man ignored Sanji and instead walked over to a rack lined with various tools. He selected what looked like a leather whip with a sharp point on the end.

"So, feel like answering my questions today?" the man asked, experimentally snapping the whip in the space next to Sanji.

"Not really," Sanji shifted his wright a bit on the chain. This dangling was making his wrists ache.

"Very well," the man lashed out with the whip and the pointed end tore across Sanji's chest. He clenched his teeth as pain spread from the wound. Blood streamed from the tear in his flesh and ran down his chest. The man slowly walked around Sanji, lashing out with the whip everywhere. But there was no way Sanji was going to tell this man anything to betray his nakama.

"Come on, this will be easier for you if you just speak," the man huffed.

"Piss off," Sanji spat. The whip struck out at his face, forcing him to turn his head. He could feel the blood dripping down his face and body from the various lacerations caused by the whip.

"This doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I'll try something else," the man sighed, walking back over to the rack of tools. He put the whip back and scanned over the other tools there. Sanji watched quietly, trying to ignore the searing pain all over his body.

"Ah, this will do," the man turned back around with a malicious sneer and a knife in his hand. Sanji watched him approach, sending off silent death threats.

"Don't worry, I won't kill you," the man said, stopping less than a foot away. Then he brought the knife up and pressed it against Sanji's chest until it just broke the skin before dragging it down. Sanji clenched his teeth harder, refusing to give this man any satisfaction. Even something as simple as showing that he was in pain.

. . . . .

Zoro sighed, looking lazily around the cell room. This place was getting boring… The person who had been trying to get information from him thought repeatedly dunking his head in a barrel of water would work, the idiot. Luffy was probably wondering where he and Sanji were by now; it would be best to escape soon. ' _Maybe tonight_ ' Zoro thought, glancing over at the bars blocking his escape. ' _Or in the morning..'_

He would just have to wait for the guards to bring Sanji back from his questioning, then they could figure out some way to leave. Instead, some guards came to take him from the cell once again. He grumbled in annoyance at the thought of having to wait even longer to escape but followed them anyways. They brought him to a different room this time, one downstairs. When he got there, he was surprised to see Sanji, chained to the wall with blood dripping from his body and looking pissed.

"What the hell cook? Why are you here," he blurted. Sanji looked over at him and glared.

"I could ask you the same marimo," he snapped. But something about his voice sounded off, almost weaker. Zoro wondered if the cook was okay, but controlled his features. He wouldn't give the other man in the room, the one who probably did this, the satisfaction of seeing him worried.

"Now now, I didn't bring you here to argue," the other man in the room said. Then he gestured to the guards and they tightened their grip on Zoro. The swordsman glared at the guards but did not struggle. He wanted to know what was going on first.

"It doesn't seem that simple methods will work on you. I'm going to try something new to get information and you- _marimo_ was it? - have just given me the perfect idea," he sneered. Zoro's eyes narrowed in a scowl.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll give both of you one chance, tell me where you crew is and how to beat them. If you don't, I'll make sure you regret it," he said, looking over a rack filled with various tools.

"Like hell we would," Sanji stared coldly at the man.

"Nothing will make us abandon our crew," Zoro added. The man paused in his selection to glance over at Zoro.

"Very well," the man had a strange glint in his eye. His hand hovered over the tool rack before selecting a somewhat large hammer. Zoro frowned as the man shifted his grip on the hammer and walked over to Sanji.

"You said your friend was a cook, yes?" he looked over his shoulder at Zoro, his sneer widening into a gleeful smirk. Zoro's eyes widened. ' _No!'_ his eyes met Sanji's and for probably the first time, his nakama looked terrified. The man lifted the hammer up. Sanji began to thrash against the chains.

"H-Hey!" Zoro began pulling, trying to break free from the other wardens' grips, but they weren't budging. The hammer swung.

"STOP!" a loud crunch sounded through the room as the hammer smashed into Sanji's hands.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following this story. It's really been a great motivation for me!**

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A scream broke through the air. Zoro was beyond furious, a rage, like he had never felt before, rose from within him. He clenched his fists, his focus zoning in on the monster who would dare to do this. Before he knew it, he had the monster's throat clenched in his fist.

"You…" he couldn't even finish the sentence. He was too enraged, remembering how this monster laughed, that sick gleam in his eyes. He squeezed harder until he heard a crack. Zoro dropped the lifeless body to the ground and turned to face the rest of them. The bastards who had dared to hold him back, who stopped him from preventing this. A moment later, they were all lying on the ground too.

He stood there for a few moments, panting and looking over all the corpses on the ground. He turned to face Sanji and a whole new rage passed over him. The cook had his head down, probably passed out from the pain, and Zoro could see why. His hands were already beginning to swell, and a bone jutted out from one hand with blood streaming from around it.

He closed his eyes to cut off the terrible image. He needed to calm down, to think, to get them out of this place. He opened his eyes and ripped a shirt from one of the men. He didn't know much about medical stuff – that was Chopper's job – but he knew the bone should not be sticking out like that. He approached the cook and feeling slightly nauseous, he pushed the bone back into Sanji's hand before wrapping both hands in the shirt to try to stop the broken bones from getting any worse.

Then he found the key on the one who did all this, and unlocked the cuffs around Sanji's wrists. Now he just had to wake him up, find his swords and get them out. He used another shirt to tie off as many of the bleeding wounds on Sanji's body as he could.

"Hey…" he shook Sanji's shoulder slightly.

"Come on cook, we have to get out of here," he frowned. Thankfully, Sanji woke up, but maybe not so thankfully. Zoro didn't want to see that pained, distraught look in his friend's eyes.

"Let's go," he said quietly, about to stand up.

"It hurts," Sanji's voice came out in almost a whine. Zoro froze, seeing the cook close to tears. He looked away. Sanji wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be broken and almost crying, because Zoro didn't know what to do when his usually tough and unbreakable friend was like this.

"We have to go," he repeated quietly, grabbing Sanji's arm and pulling him to his feet. Sanji gasped in pain and almost fell back down, but Zoro tightened his grip on Sanji's arm to steady him. Aside from his broken hands, Zoro could also see that Sanji had lost quite a bit of blood from the previous torture. And all of this was causing the cook so much pain and Zoro didn't know what to do to fix it. The only person he knew who could fix it was Chopper.

"Come on," he gave the blonde a light tug and walked towards the room's exit. A little while after leaving the room, he managed to find a guard who he scared into leading him to his swords. He hooked the weapons back onto his belt where they belonged before drawing one. One would be enough to take care of anyone who got in his way.

After getting lost, more times than he would like to admit, Zoro finally got them to the exit without too much trouble from the marines guarding this place. For all that bravado the marines showed when they first arrived, these guys were pretty weak.

But after leaving the prison, a new problem arose. The base exited out into a mountainous place, and the village the Sunny was docked at was nowhere in sight. On top of that, Sanji's condition was getting worse. It seemed he could barely even walk from both pain and blood-loss, despite Zoro doing everything he could to stop the bleeding.

"Damn marines," he cursed. Putting their base somewhere so far away… he needed to get Sanji to Chopper immediately. He looked back at the cook to see him staring at his wrapped hands with a hopeless look in his eyes.

"Stop thinking about it, it won't make it better," Zoro stated, sounding a bit harsher than he had meant.

"How can I Zoro?" his voice cracked, and the tears that he'd been holding back this whole time started to fall. "It hurts, so much… And-"

"Chopper will fix them. You'll be fine," Zoro interrupted.

"No! How do you know that!? What if he can't fix my hands? Then what Zoro?" Sanji's voice tapered off to almost a whisper. Zoro opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He didn't know what to say. It seemed nothing he said could make this better because Sanji was right. He usually never agreed with the cook but this time…

His hands had been broken very badly, and while Zoro wasn't a doctor, he didn't think they would be very easy to fix. Then he would never be able to cook properly again, his whole life… But they had to have hope, if nothing else. Because if anyone could fix this, it would be Chopper. They just needed to hurry back to the crew and then believe in the little reindeer.

"Just believe in him, Chopper can do it," he said, nodding. What Sanji, and Zoro too, really needed was hope. Even if the chance was slim that anything would work, they just had to have hope.

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 **Thanks for reading, and please leave a review. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter was so late, I just didn't have much inspiration or time for it… hopefully I can get the next one out sooner.**

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Sanji trudged quietly behind Zoro, trying to ignore the pain. His whole body hurt, but his hands were the worse. They throbbed, each time sending a horrible wave of pain over him. He imagined they must look terrible, but he couldn't see them because of the cloth Zoro had wrapped around them. He was glad. He didn't want to see them if they looked as bad as they felt.

Zoro had said that Chopper could fix them, but he wasn't so sure. It wasn't that he didn't believe in Chopper. No, he knew that if there were a way, Chopper would fix his hands perfectly. But Sanji wasn't sure there was a way to fix them. He had seen the hammer coming, felt it smash into his hands… He knew there were a lot more than just a few bones broken, and probably some nerve damage. He just wasn't sure if they could be fixed at all, no matter how good a doctor Chopper was.

Zoro didn't understand that… He thought anything was possible. Though most things were in their crew, maybe not this time. He stopped walking as a wave of dizziness passed over him and reached out to a nearby tree for support. Zoro also stopped when he noticed and turned to look at him with a questioning look.

Sanji removed his hand from the tree and took a step forward. Only to have his leg collapse under him and fall to the ground. He cursed mentally as his vision began to darken. He didn't even know if he would make it to the ship at this rate.

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Zoro stopped waling when he heard Sanji's footsteps stop behind him. He turned around and look at the cook questioningly. Sanji didn't look like he was doing very well. He was even paler than when they'd first left the prison and blood was still seeping through Zoro's makeshift tourniquet albeit slowly. He watched as the cook tried to take a step forward only to fall to the ground. Zoro's eyes widened and ran over to Sanji, kneeling in front of him.

"Hey, wake up," He shook his shoulder. But it didn't work.

"Come on, we need to get back to the crew quickly," he tried again. When he still got no response, Zoro sighed in frustration, and hefted Sanji onto his back. They really did need to hurry if Sanji's condition was getting this bad. He began to walk in what direction he hoped the town was in.

Zoro found himself wondering again, how hard it would be for Chopper to fix Sanji's hands. While he had full faith in the little doctor, he knew the procedure couldn't be easy. Especially that one bone that even stuck out of his hand… Zoro shook the thought from his mind. Thinking about those things wouldn't help him. If anything, worrying would just slow him down.

He just needed to hurry through this area to the town, hopefully before night. Zoro knew he wouldn't be able to find his way in such a forested and mountainous area with no light, and Sanji's condition could grow much worse if they took another whole day to reach the crew.

He glanced up through the tree branched at the sky. The sun was shining brightly directly above him. He could probably get back to town in time if it was only mid-day. At least there was some good news that day…

Zoro sighed, still feeling angry about what had happened. He tried to suppress it, but it was difficult. He knew the marines weren't as perfect as the public thought they were, but he didn't expect something like that. Though he should have. Maybe then, he could have done something to prevent this from happening. Maybe if he'd just gotten away from the marines holding him back a little sooner. But there was no use dwelling on what could have been. What happened wasn't going to change. He just needed to deal with the results.

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Luffy sat on Sunny's head, staring out at the town. The ship was unusually silent and everyone seemed a little on edge. Ussop quietly approached Luffy, fiddling with his hands.

"Uh, Luffy, do you think we should go look for them?" he asked nervously. It had been two days since they had seen Zoro and Sanji. He was sure something must have happened; otherwise, they would have been back by now.

"No."

"What!?" Ussop's eyes widened in shock.

"But what if something happened? Luffy-"

"They'll be back," Luffy said, complete assurance in his voice. Ussop sighed, plopping down on the deck behind Luffy. He didn't know how their captain could have so much faith, and then make him feel that same faith with just a few words. It was uncanny but comforting at the same time.

"Hey Luffy! I think I see them!" Brook waved down at them from the crow's nest. Luffy stretched out his arms and flung himself up to the skeleton. He looked to where Brook was pointing, and saw them emerge from the forest. But something didn't seem right…

"Chopper!"

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 **Thanks for reading! And please leave a review if you can. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter is so late, I got stuck on a few scenes and then a lot started happening at school… but here it is now, so I hope you like it! :)**

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The crew was there to meet them when Zoro arrived at the ship. He was barraged with questions as he handed Sanji over to Chopper. So he told the crew about what had happened and by the end of his story, they all looked just as enraged as he had felt.

"Where is their base," Luffy asked, clenching his fists tightly at his sides.

"There's no one left in it," Zoro answered. He knew the crew wanted revenge, but Zoro had already taken it. So they seethed quietly, waiting for Chopper to come out of the infirmary and tell them how Sanji was doing. Finally, after what felt like too long, Chopper came out.

"I… I don't know if I can fix his hands," Chopper said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Zoro asked, sounding a bit harsher than he meant to.

Chopper looked down at his feet, tearing up a little, "there's some nerve damage and I don't know if I can fix that." The crew stood in silence, trying to absorb the information. Chopper looked down at his feet teary eyed. He wanted so much to be able to fix Sanji's hands, but he didn't know how. The damage was too extensive. He couldn't-

Chopper looked up, a sudden idea coming to mind. "Hey Franky, can I see you for a moment?"

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Zoro sat in the crow's nest scowling out at the sea. It had been hours since Chopper had taken Franky into the infirmary and no one had left since. It was already late at night and he was on watch.

He figured Chopper must have thought of something, some way to fix what had happened. He didn't really have a clue how, but he was just tired of waiting. Just waiting, and not knowing, and not being able to do anything.

He stood up. Chopper had told them all to stay out too long ago, he had to be done with whatever he was doing by now. He climbed down the ladder and stalked across the desk to the infirmary. He paused for less than a second before knocking on the door.

"Hey Chopper, can I come in?" he asked. There was quiet talking for a few moments before Chopper called out a 'yes.' He opened the door and walked in. Sanji was sitting on one of the cots in the room and Chopper was checking the thick bandages around the cook's hand. Chopper looked up from what he was doing and gave Zoro a questioning look.

"So… how is he?" Zoro asked.

"What, you worried marimo?" Sanji teased.

"Shut up!" Zoro snapped, glaring lightly at the cook.

"I think the surgery went well, but I won't know for sure until everything is settled," Chopper said, looking between the two. Zoro nearly let out a sigh in relief. At least now he felt hope. Now there was a pretty good chance that the cook would be okay. He would be able to pursue his dreams and continue to cook for the crew. He believed in Chopper. If their doctor said the odds were good, then Zoro knew everything would be okay.

"Ok," he turned and left the infirmary. If he stayed around too long Sanji might find out he actually was worried. But he'd better hurry up and heal, so he wouldn't have to worry any more.

* * *

The recovery was tough. At first it had seemed like the surgery hadn't even worked, but Chopper had insisted that it would just take time. Thankfully he was right, and after about half a week Sanji had been able to move his fingers. It was a small but very welcome victory. After that his use of his hands continued to get better.

And now here Zoro was, pretending to nap in the kitchen while Sanji cooked dinner. It felt silly that he was even slightly worried at this point, the ero-cook was fine. And he'd be pissed off if he found out that's why Zoro's been napping in the galley before meals. But well, it was almost his job as first mate, to worry about his nakama. Even the cook.

His eyes snapped open when he heard the clanking of a spoon falling into a metal pot. Sanji cursed, clenching and unclenching his fingers before picking up the spoon again. Zoro watched carefully now, noticing the faint tremor of his hand as he stirred the broth.

"Maybe you should take a break." Zoro suggested.

"I'm fine marimo," he growled, not even turning around. Zoro's eyes narrowed as he watched the tremor get slightly worse. He stood up and walked across the room, snatching the spoon from Sanji's hand.

"Hey! What the hell marimo!?" Sanji shouted, trying to grab the spoon back. Zoro blocked him, continuing to stir.

"Chopper said you need to take breaks so you don't mess up your hands worse," Zoro grumbled.

"Since when do you listen to Chopper's orders?"

"That's not the point," Zoro scowled, shaking his head. Sanji sighed but didn't try to grab at the spoon again. Instead, he fished out a cigarette and lit up, blowing out a stream of smoke. They stayed like that in comfortable silence for a while until it was broken by Luffy's calls for meat.

Sanji grabbed the spoon to finish preparing dinner, and Zoro let him. His hands weren't shaking anymore. He walked back over to the table and sat down to wait for the finishing touches on dinner. Sanji would be fine.


End file.
